Saturday, March 10, 2018

Loyalty to Russia or to Wealth? 58 Percent of Russia’s Richest have a Second Passport

Paul Goble

Staunton,
March 10 -- Fifty-eight percent of Russians with a net worth of 50 million US
dollars or more have dual citizenship, and 45 percent say they would consider
moving permanently to live in another country, both higher figures than even in
Latin America where 41 percent say the currently have a second passport.

These
figures from The Wealth Report 2018 prepared by the Frank King Consulting
Company were reported in Russia in Moscow’s Gazeta
newspaper earlier this week (gazeta.ru/business/2018/03/07/11675077.shtml).
Not surprisingly, they have raised questions about the ultimate loyalties of
these supposed pillars of the Putin regime.

One
Russian blogger, who writes under the screen name El Murid, says there is “nothing
particularly new in this research.” It has long been known that wealth in Russia
is highly concentrated and that those with the most money think first and
foremost about keeping it rather than promoting the development of their
homeland.

Consequently, El
Murid continues, “with this elite, the country has not future and cannot have
one. Either it has a future or we do. The two can’t exist for long at one and the
same time.”And as it become clearer
what the facts are, he says, Russia “is approaching a stage when regardless of
anyone’s desires, the question of its transformation arises.”

The existing system is in fact “already in
its agony.”Changing it, like changing
any other system is “always a revolutionary process; and like in any
revolution, the most important question besides that about power, of course,
becomes” if put in simplest terms “who will pay” and who will benefit.

In a
country like Russia where one tenth of one percent owns a predominant share of the
economy, the answer is “obvious: either they will pay or the rest of the people
will” because “there are no other resources for carrying out revolutionary
transformations,” El Murid continues.

That does
not mean, however, “that a revolution (from above or from below) will lead to
any particular result. It isn’t enough to have resources; one must be able to
effectively make use of them.”

Given that
the current regime is the most ineffective in the history of the country, El
Murid argues, any revolution from above almost certainly would reflect that
reality.But a revolution from below
might not achieve anything either. Most recent revolutionary attempts from
below have failed.

El Murid
concludes that despite that and despite the fact that many knew about the real
attachments of the current Russia elites, “such investigations are good to the
extent that they show who precisely is the enemy of the future of the country
and who precisely must be liquidated in a political and economic sense for the
country to have a chance for a future.”